Avoiding hell breaking loose

We were in the middle of a global pandemic which looked like it was starting to let up a bit but then right before the election I saw the death count on my screen rise like never before and then there is an insurrection compounded with a global pandemic at a time when listening to the scientists and taking the precaution of wearing masks was not something that Trump was willing to do. These factors interrupt the normal course of a presidential inauguration: Joe Biden looks out upon thousands of flags instead of people. Trump’s final official acts while in office were to obstruct the seamless transition of power up to and including not providing necessary information for the next president to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic. In an emergency situation Donald Trump prevented a smooth transition to Joe Biden and we now have a Supreme Court that has ruled that the official acts of a president are subject to immunity. We have basically made it legal for a president to disrupt the transition of power in the middle of a pandemic that is killing millions of people and to try to smear his successor’s record before he has even set foot in the Oval Office.

The last time I checked I think I read that attenders of a political campaign rally were shot at and killed with a semi-automatic weapon that as far as I have been able to see so far was purchased ‘legally’ under current law by the shooter’s father. We need to make sure that the weapons that are used to kill in these kinds of attacks again and again are subject to the kinds of regulation and background checks worthy of a society that wishes to be safer and freer than ever. We need the sorts of gun safety laws that will prevent the same tragedies and themes from playing out at one public or school shooting after another (without stigmatizing ‘mental illness’ or people who might have things such as ‘wellness checks’ on their record.)

Still, though, there is nothing to stop an ex-president from spreading COVID-19 intentionally, effectively shooting it choatically from place to place like a gun, and being totally immune to consequences for the fallout of that. Do we want to vote for a ‘president’ who thought it was okay to disrupt the peaceful transition of power in a crisis or the president who did an absolutely mindbogglingly phenomenal job of passing legislation that betters our lives in so many ways and I can’t imagine anyone else in office who would have been able to do that. Put ten other leaders in the White House with that configuration on Capitol Hill and I can’t imagine them passing anywhere near the effective and powerful legislation that Joe Biden was actually able to pass in his first term in office. We need to vote for him again or all hell may well break loose.